Ann Time
by robert3A-SN
Summary: After a breakthrough road trip with Ben, Leslie shares her excitement, fears- or a surprising lack thereof- with her best friend. Refers to some plot points teased for the next two episodes.


**Warning: Spoilers are taken from preview summaries of next week's two, sure to be utterly epic episodes. Needless to say, big back-to-back events appear to be in store for the two most important relationships in Leslie's life.**

Once Leslie got back from Indianapolis with Ben, and once she dropped him off at his house- and shared one more secret kiss with him before Andy and April could notice- it took her a while to remember to visit Ann. In fact, after Ben left the car, it took Leslie a good 10 seconds to remember where Ann lived. But it finally came back to her, right before all of yesterday's driving, mishaps, meetings, confessions….and other things….conquered her memory again.

Still, Leslie finally calmed down enough to stop her hands from shaking- after the third time she almost went on the other side of the road. Gradually, she put herself back into Ann mode, as although things were finally falling into place with the other major relationship in her life, she knew she still had to make room for Ann time.

Although last week's….unpleasantness between them had been put aside, and Ann did help her quite a bit before the road trip, Leslie still wanted to make sure they were back to their old routine. Of course, their old routine didn't include the news that Leslie had in store for her today. Better to spill it now, before her Ben-euphoria made her forget everyone's names. And better to do it before tomorrow, when she had to keep her excitement a complete secret from Chris, the entire office, and everyone else she ever knew.

Unfortunately, her swooning made her forget if Ben said whether it was safe to tell Ann or not. But now that they were best friends again- and since she was still too busy ignoring Chris to spill the beans in a heated argument- it should be fine. Although it technically violated the whole "secret relationship" rules they had to live by for now, what the heck- Leslie was already breaking one big rule, so a smaller break should help balance it out.

A half hour later, when Ann was finished squealing in excitement with Leslie at her house, Leslie noted that this was the second time she felt giddy over breaking a rule lately. Of course, the high from the first breaking played a big part in it, but for once, this was no time for nitpicking.

Yet the old panicky Leslie managed to come back, once she finished telling Ann about every kiss for the third time. She reminded Ann not to say anything, even if she accidentally got matched up with Chris as her next blind date.

"Of course I'm not gonna say anything, especially to Chris," Ann reassured. "But how are you gonna make sure he doesn't find out another way?"

"I had a whole bunch of ideas right before Ben kissed me for the first time…but I kinda forgot them," Leslie rued. "You work in a hospital, is there some new experimental pill for that?"

"Not since the last time I checked," Ann joked, although Leslie didn't seem to get it. "When was that, exactly? Did you at least hear if they had a date set for tests?"

This kind of questioning actually reassured Ann, and gave the whole thing a sense of normalcy, in that crazy Leslie way. Even in this uncharted territory for her, her new crazy-in-love self was still side-by-side with her old, loopy self. Of course, they'd probably be working together and battling it out more than ever, especially since Leslie really needed some sneaky lessons soon.

And of course it all had to be because of Chris, who couldn't be satisfied with messing up one relationship in Pawnee. Even if he didn't know he was doing it, just like he didn't know about a bunch of other things in that stupid, chiseled head of his. But she shook out that last part, which she was actually getting better at doing lately.

"I wish I wasn't the only one you could celebrate this with," Ann remarked. Since uncertain reality was already starting to butt into this long overdue party, they might as well get the rest of it out there. Ann imagined that she'd be doing this balancing act quite a bit around Leslie for the foreseeable future.

"I know, Ann. But…it's still kinda funny, actually."

"What, the part where Ben made lightsaber noises when cars drove by?" Ann took that last stab of lightening the mood, before they got back to the dark and dumb parts of this saga.

"Well, that too. But here's the thing….right up until last night, I kept imagining the worst case scenario about what'd happen if we….let the inevitable happen. I tried to keep myself under control by thinking about how I'd get suspended or fired, and Ben would get fired, if we messed up. Of course, that didn't really calm me so much as get me 40 percent closer to vomiting….or maybe that was just those inferior waffles in Indy-"

"What about the inevitable, Leslie?" Ann asked to try and bring Leslie's point back towards a point.

"Oh, right! Anyway, after we finished making out and I got back to my room at 2 a.m., I should have been more afraid of that bad stuff than before. Heck, I even saw TV reports about me getting fired in my head when I woke up. Even dream Joan was snippier than regular Joan, but maybe that's because dream me wasn't caught crying by TV cameras…."

"And real Leslie's tears?" asked a slightly impatient Ann.

"That's the thing….I should have been freaking out over how this was gonna cost me my job, the Mayor's office and the Oval Office if it went wrong. I mean, I was before the road trip…..but afterwards, I wasn't really that freaked out at all. In fact, even when I thought about a future without my job, or Ben's job, that giddy feeling from last night was still there anyway. Why is that?"

Now that Ann finally got the point- even if Leslie probably didn't have the whole picture herself- she couldn't help but smile. This really was something she didn't expect to hear from Leslie, although she had hoped for it quite a bit, especially lately, But since this was so foreign to Leslie, she still had to take some wild stabs to explain it.

"Maybe those new waffles really were damaging to my system. Or wait….what if someone from Eagleton was visiting, and the clean air they brought in somehow infected my brain? I warned everyone that could happen years ago, but I prayed I wouldn't be patient zero!"

"Leslie, relax. You're not infected….you're in love." Leaving aside how that really wasn't a different thing in some aspects, Ann pressed on. "You're happy because you're finally where you're supposed to be with Ben, and it's making the consequences not so bad. Even if you're that scared about losing your job, and all your big dreams are in trouble…..it's not that devastating because the next best thing possible will still be there. Even if he gets fired too."

Well, that was perfect for the first 99%, Ann cursed herself, before Leslie's voice blocked out the rest of her thoughts. "Oh God, he'd probably be the only one to get fired….Chris is just super evil enough to suspend me, fire him, and count on him getting mad enough to dump me before I got back! Then he'd cackle while doing jumping jacks, or swimming!"

Fortunately for both women, Ann hit on the right idea to redeem that last poor choice of words.

"He's not gonna get the chance to cackle, and you know that. You know why? Because you know that everyone you know, and everyone you've ever helped, would put that jerkbag and his microchips in a living Hell until he reinstated you both. Especially me, and Tom, and Andy, and Donna, and Jerry….hell, even Ron and April!"

And with that, Ann came up with her second glorious point in as many tries. This was turning into quite a comeback for her, which was a refreshing change of pace.

"That's right, Ron and April! Those two are the most apathetic people we know, and they go out of their way not to care about much of anything!" Ann knew that this was oversimplifying things, and that Leslie was getting ready to pounce and defend them. But she went on since this was a crucial setup. "But you're their Kryptonite!"

Since Leslie had been consumed in that kind of Ben-like nerd sphere for the last few months, Ann figured that would throw her off. "If you were suspended or fired, those two would use more effort to get you back than they would for almost anything else in their lives, just for you! Heck, they might get more determined than me, even if they'd never admit it! And that's the whole point!"

Now Ann was showing a Leslie-esq lack of a filter, in letting everything just come out of her. But after "The Fight" put them through the ringer, yet stopped before it went past the point of total no return, she really felt compelled to say all this now. The fact that they just got through their first fight in two years of friendship, that it ended in time for her to savor this milestone for Leslie, and that Leslie still needed some final reassurance on how special she was to everyone...it all made Ann want to really drive the point home.

"That's why if the worst came, everyone would fight for you and Ben as hard as you fight for everyone else every day. You just bring that out in people, even the most unlikely ones of all. Even….even nurses who didn't have one thought about government until two years ago. And even bitter, nerdy, ex-boy mayors who wanted to fire you before they met you. So since you've done all that for us, we're sure as hell gonna do the same for you and your boyfriend if we have to."

Leslie had come close to tearing up in happiness more than once in the last 16 hours. But this was the first time she did so when Ben wasn't around, or wasn't in her head more than 80% of the time. With that, that old glowing feeling she got from Ann's special brand of friendship built up- perhaps even stronger than it had in the pre-fight days.

Two years ago, that kind of warm, fuzzy feeling was only reserved for her job, and for Pawnee in general. But it hadn't really been there for individual people or relationships outside of her family, at least since the falling out with Lindsay. Even with all the glow she had for Ron and Mark and April and Tom, and everyone else in Pawnee who wasn't Jerry or a library employee, it wasn't at that real extra-special level.

But eventually, Ann became the first real friend to get that extra special place in her. And then a year later, Ben came around and took a different, but just as special place she didn't think was there- a conquest which he finally got to finish off in Indianapolis. Now she had three extra special sources of happiness, and two of them were actually from people- and for the first time in a really long time, she didn't know if her job inspired the strongest kind.

Just days ago, she thought she'd lost all that, when she was fighting with Ann and when things with Ben were as stuck and messed up as ever. Now in the blink of an eye, not only was it all back, it was back and better than ever. Maybe it would always be that way now. Now that she had back the best best friend in the world, and had finally landed the best boyfriend in the world, and that they'd do anything to make sure she still had the best job in the best town in the world….

Yeah, this was officially the best road trip ever, now that it had the best epilogue ever. And somehow, Leslie was able to think all this in an otherwise silent, big hug with Ann.

But she got back her ability to speak once they broke apart. "You're right, it's all gonna be okay. In fact….maybe this means we can try and have secret dates in places other than my house now! Maybe we don't even need to send Andy and April out before we go to Ben's house, at least after the first six times!" With that, Leslie hopped off the couch and starting heading for Ann's room. "Hey Ann, do you have sunglasses and a big hat I can borrow? Or at least some kind of eye or headwear that won't get you identified in a restaurant?"

Ann just chuckled, since Leslie was already searching her closet trying to find the answer herself. But after this latest high was finished, the latest annoying downer came in. Somehow, Ann realized she probably made it more likely that they'd get caught, now that Leslie was the direct opposite of paranoid. And with her already established lack of sneakiness, even Ben's rational planning probably wouldn't balance it out- it certainly hadn't withstood Leslie so far.

She was still confident that they would save their jobs in the end, even if Chris's super-jerkiness actually got more powerful since he broke up with her. They would need a lot of help though, as even Leslie and a Leslie-fueled Ben couldn't take on that brand of evil on their own….

Suddenly, Ann got a very Leslie-like brand of inspiration. As the only other person to know their secret, she had a head start on time to find ways to save them. There were bound to be a variety of ways to fight Chris if he disciplined them- and not just in the R-rated ways that Ann came up with over the last few months. If she could find some less bloody ideas for protesting on Leslie and Ben's behalf, she could present them to the others and get them on board the second their friends got punished, and get them back at work even faster.

Of course, she had no idea how to organize protests, political or otherwise. But if she skipped her next several dates, she could have a broad outline planned out, and count on the others to fill in the rest when the time came.

Once Leslie finally left with everything that resembled a disguise from Ann's closet, Ann spent quite a while coming up with a few good outlines. Not Leslie good, but not bad for a beginner.

This kind of inspiration was pretty new to Ann, after all.

Yet as Ben probably knew all too well himself by now, that was just an unavoidable side-effect of so much Leslie time.


End file.
